Archive for the ‘Fred Duesenberg’ tag

For a car that billed itself as the world’s finest – a billing with which many people, from royalty to tycoon, concurred – the Duesenberg had a relatively short lifespan, only a few different models, and an awfully limited production run. But those few cars set the standard for automotive styling in their day and, one could argue, helped to inspire the foundations of the collector-car hobby that continues to revere the cars a century after the Duesenberg brothers began to build their own automobiles.

Fred (born 1876) and August (born 1879) Duesenberg immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1885 and, like most young men around the turn of the century, got swept up in the bicycle craze, building and racing them from their home in Iowa. Right around 1900, though, their interests evolved into internal combustion engines and after a brief attempt to motorize one of their bicycles (using a rotary-valve two-stroke single-cylinder engine) in 1900, they refocused on designing and building automobiles. While some histories attempt to tie the brothers at the hip over the years, it appears Fred was the brother who made the acquaintance of Des Moines lawyer and financier Edward Mason and who went on to design the Mason automobile in 1906. He eventually enlisted his brother’s help to take the Mason racing, which they did through 1913.

That year proved quite eventful for the brothers. For the first time, they entered cars in the Indianapolis 500 – all three under the Mason name – and shortly after the race they enlisted Eddie Rickenbacker to join their team. However, the relationship with Mason dissolved that year, likely due to the company’s receivership that summer, and the Duesenberg brothers left for St. Paul, Minnesota, in June to start the Duesenberg Motor Company. Rather than build production cars, the brothers initially decided to focus on their “walking-beam” engine, a horizontal-valve four-cylinder that the brothers patented (U.S. Patent numbers 1,244,481, 1,363,500, and 1,476,327) and put to good use in racing over the next several years.

Duesenberg race car with walking-beam engine. Photos by the author.

The brothers kept busy during World War I with government contracts, but after the war they sold the rights to the walking-beam engine to the Rochester Motors Company and began development on a new overhead-camshaft straight-eight engine, the engine that would power the first Duesenberg-branded automobile, the Model A, which entered production in 1922 (two years after the brothers initially displayed the Model A to the public). A revamped Model A – the Model X – came out a few years later, but E.L. Cord – who bought Duesenberg in 1926 – had already tasked Fred Duesenberg with building the ultimate automobile, the Model J, which debuted in December 1928 and remained in production in both naturally aspirated and supercharged form through 1937. Since then, a number of attempts have been made to revive the great Duesenberg name (and more than a few sketches and renderings), but as of yet no production cars have resulted.

At least a couple of concours events have announced celebrations of the centennial, including the Dana Point Concours d’Elegance, which selected Duesenberg as this year’s featured marque, and the Barrington Concours d’Elegance, which will feature Duesenbergs in its special American Royalty class and honor Duesenberg expert Randy Ema.

The 31st annual Dana Point Concours d’Elegance will take place June 21-23 in Dana Point, California. The seventh annual Barrington Concours d’Elegance will take place July 12-14 in Barrington, Illinois. For more information, visit DanaPointConcours.org or BarringtonConcours.org.